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Marriott IT Exec Shares Network Horror Story
alphadogg writes "Neil Schubert is only partly kidding when he calls Marriott International's move toward a converged network a horror story. 'I'm here to tell you a terrifying tale of network design, support and administration,' he said at an IT conference in Boston, referring to a major bandwidth crunch caused by guests wielding Slingboxes and other network devices that overran the hotel chain's outdated network. 'One of the things we've learned about our guest networks is we have one of the most foreign, hostile environments known to man in the network administration world ... I can take 100,000 customers a night on that infrastructure and we actually have less incidents of harm than we do on our corporate back-office infrastructure.'"
Marriott has a network and customers use it. Marriott realizes the network is overwhelmed by the customer use and is now upgrading it.
So where's the horror? Or is this just Marriott's way of advertising their new network?
For running this slashvertisement, Zonk's getting one years free accommodation from the Marriott chain, so what's the problem?
Can't an "Editor" graft in peace?
So what was the point of that article again? I must have missed it. Perhaps the PR flak who subbed it could explain it to me. I want that two minutes of my life back now /.
I just get this mental image I'm not going to be able to shake....
"Some call it a slingbox, I call it appleTV. nnnngggggghhhh"
There needs to be better coordination between marketing and IT. IT had no idea marketing was running commercials showing customers using all this high-bandwidth stuff so there's no way IT could be prepared for it. Imagine 160 customers just trying to view websites on one DSL line! I admire this guy for his honesty if nothing else. He'll probably catch hell for it from his superiors!
Alright! I know I'm in there! If I don't come out, I'll have to come in after me!
The business units of most organizations typically make promises to their customers without comprehending or even considering the IT implications. Account Executive to customer: "Sure! We can provide you and your thousands of users seamless B2B connections from your network to ours wirelessly from any global location!" Account Executive to IT department: "Ok, you guys figure out how to do that."
Trying to parse it on lexical level is OK, moving to syntax is a bit challenging (have to make some assumptions!), but then on semantic level (taking above-mentioned assumptions into account) -- IT JUST DOES NOT PARSE!!! :) There is a feling of some text semi-randomly generated but not that smart an AI... (in other words, reminds me of spam!)
:)
On which network he could accomodate 100,000 customers, the one before the great unification, or the one after? Which network gives him his headaches?
Now, I'm curious to know!
Paul B,
I may have understood some of the article but it seems to have been mainly an exercise in trotting out what somebody thinks are the most trendy buzzwords.
FTA
"Customer connections and bandwidth consumption increased fourfold, according to Schubert, the vice president of IT strategy."
After a commercial aired on national TV and bandwidth consumption went up fourfold. Being a network administrator in charge of that network had to be tense. Basically over night your network has turned into something slower than dial up. Just a little pressure for the network admin.
Instead, get zero-management access points that do not do NAT, routing, etc, and treat them just like antennas once you set the SSID. Do the protocol processing in the telecom closet with a higher grade of hardware than consumer equipment. Cache DNS and web transfers there. Work with Slingbox to engineer channel aggregation with multicasting that bypasses the home units while transmitting the same programming, because so many of those folks are watching the same sports game. I can think of some interesting approaches to the possible legal issues with Slingbox aggregating channels, no doubt they can as well. Can an in-house video alternative be made as attractive as Slingbox? That's another solution.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
This seems like a thinly veiled ad for Marriot internet access.
...is that the worst threats to your network do not necessarily come from outside.... they almost always come from your very own moronic employees.
They want to put door locks on the hotel network ??? This has got to be the smartest idea I've ever heard. Because we all know that plugging Ethernet cord into something instantly gives you more protection and security!
I can throw as many stones as I wish; my house is made of transparent aluminum.
At first I thought Marriott was going to fire this guy. Then I realized that he just gave himself job security. What network admin will want to deal with this particular nightmare? Not I.
While I was at the 2005 MysqlUC in Santa Clara, Microsoft put out one of their massive patch releases. Despite a large number of people running OS X or some Linux variant, there were still enough geeks in the hotel running Windows that they essentially DoS'ed the hotel's internet connection for about 2 days. I went down to reception at the time to find out if it was just the wireless, but the front desk people were similarly frustrated (they shared the same connection). Packet loss was at about 99%.
That was probably just a T1 or something, but still, pretty funny. I wonder if Microsoft realises the damage potential..
This guy clearly has *not* read the article.
I had to endure a week of Marriott internet access earlier this year. Not only did they nickel and dime you if you for using wired ethernet, they were preforming some kind of packet filtering. SSH would only work if you used a US based encryption protocol, really wierd. Also, because of the packet filetering even a simple task like uploading photos to the server back home took hours.
Someone doesn't have cable!
That the reason they do it is because statistically a percentage of people don't make a given flight. Sometimes it ends up in conflicts, especially since they tend to err on the side of being full rather than no conflicts, but there is good reason to do it. If 100% of people who wanted on a flight showed up, they'd never overbook. However about 10-15% of people cancel their reservations or otherwise fail to show. Thus it makes sense to overbook the aircraft.
There's only one kind of graft when the subject is a Slashdot 'editor'; Nobody is dumb enough to think Zonk and Co do anything like actual "work".
With some irony, I am reading this story from a Marriott hotel room at the Marriott Boca Raton. I've had mostly no problem with their services, but here are a few things I would call interesting: * My laptop can often see multiple nodes, some very fast, some blazingly slow. If you stay in a Marriott, try out the different nodes you can see. * Some Marriott properties give free Internet access, some cost $10/day. I wish Marriott would be consistent across all their properties. * If you stay in a Marriott that does charge for access, as for a low floor. This is because often there's a single wireless connection in the business center that is free, but other access points cost money. So if you can get a room near the business center, you'll be able to hook up to that one for free. * Finally, I've never had a problem with BitTorrent uploading at any Marriott property. I don't know if they leave all their ports open or what, but I traditionally leave my uploading port for BitTorrent open on 34567, and I've never had a problem with a torrent at a Marriott.
modern choral music...
who insists I stay in Motel6s and Econolodges. They have free wireless, and I always let Samir or Rasheed know that I'm travelling on business and I need the wireless to prepare for my next day's work. They always understand and find me a room with good signal. It always works.
Now if I can just get the ExcelInns in Wisconsin to go back to their old provider, man their new access provider doesn't know wtf they're doing.
The Marriots and Hiltons have great meeting facilities, but if you just need a place to crash and file your reports, go someplace that specializes in that.
That might almost be an excuse except that they sell non-refundable "you die, you fly" tickets, supposedly for the exact same reason. Those empty seats are already paid for. They are trying to make additional money off of them at the cost of double booking. Like most businesses, they get you both ways and make you deal with the mistakes and inconvenience.
I can take 100,000 customers a night on that infrastructure and we actually have less incidents of harm than we do on our corporate back-office infrastructure.'"
That says less about the robustness of the hospitality net and more about the poor planning and administration of the enterprise intranet.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
It's not like refundable tickets aren't available anymore. You can still get them if you want. Business travelers often do. There's some on every flight and it's probably they that are most the unpredictable. The number of non-refundable tickets sold is a factor the airlines use to decide how much to overbook.
There was a NYTimes article on this recently: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30bu mp.html. It does, in fact, cost more to the airline to have empty seats than to pay off passengers that are bumped.
I wonder how airlines choose who to bump if no one volunteers when they offer vouchers, etc. Is it by who paid the lowest fare? I can see how that'd get people upset!
Bottom line, worldwide travel doesn't always go like clockwork. Be prepared, be flexible, I say. Be one of those passengers who volunteers for a later flight, get a voucher for discount or free flight, and you won't be so annoyed by the system.
My most recent trip home from New Orleans on Continental was overbooked and they were offering initially $300 and then $400 to get off and take a flight 3 hours later.
I personally didn't take it because I was feeling ill and had a doctor's appointment that evening that I'd have missed on the later flight... but the bump would have paid for two round trip tickets at the price I paid.
(wouldn't you know, my train broke down on the way to the doctor)
Whenever evaluating marketing, the first and foremost thing to keep in mind is that it is their JOB to successfully pass frosted dog turds off as wedding cake. No matter who they work for, the number one thing they will market is THEMSELVES. Once they successfully market themselves to their employer, they may (or may not) actually market the product. After all, they don't HAVE to make the product look good every time, just convince the employer that they did!